Y'know. This game could have been good. It was originally an adaptation of Franz Kafka's The Castle, with Shinji Mikami and SUDA51 leading the show. It had actually started development. Design docs exist clearly showing what the game was supposed to be. The game was called "Kurayami".

Then EA got involved.

And what we have instead is a childish, foul-mouthed game for morons where your main weapon is called the "Boner" and sexual assault jokes and alcoholism are apparently really funny.

Most insultingly, this game uses assets made for Kurayami. I am more familiar with concept art for that game than for Shadows of the Damned. And it was evidently far enough along that they used work from Kurayami on this shitshow. A similar mechanic using darkness and shadows is included too.

I bought Shadows of the Damned more to see how much of Kurayami was left than for the game itself. I expected maybe a fun, stupid game with some relics of the old work... But I got something more akin to watching someone defile a corpse.

This game has a forced radio buddy. It has juvenile pee-pee jokes. It has the 2010 ideal of "cool". It also has a couple of nobody producers from EA putting their names in equal billing with Akira Yamaoka and Shinji fucking Mikami.

And you could say, "Maybe this is what Mikami and SUDA wanted." Perhaps. But SUDA's games, while sometimes vulgar and try hard, are rarely this obnoxious. And usually they have a point to make behind all the nonsense. And then I look at Overstrike - sorry, "FUSE" - a game that very well could have been Overwatch before Overwatch existed, only to have EA forcibly turn it into a miserable army shooter for depressed single dads. No fun allowed. That heady adaptation of an existentialist classic novel? Add more dick jokes and take out all that nerd shit. We here at EA know what the gamers really want.

Fuck this game. 🖕

Play Killer Is Dead instead. That game has its dumb moments, but it was actually a great game with an interesting story and themes.